“No. The line was unusually long today.” Mr. Quimby went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of instant coffee. While he waited for the water to heat, he poured Ramona a glass of milk and gave her a graham cracker.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Ramona looked at her father over the rim of her glass and nodded, spilling milk down her front. Silently he handed her a dish towel to wipe up while he poured hot water over the instant coffee in his mug. Then he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a package of cigarettes, looked at it a moment, and tossed it onto the counter. Ramona had never seen her father do this before. Could it be…

Mr. Quimby leaned against the counter and took a sip of coffee. “What would you like to do?” he asked Ramona.

Ramona considered before she answered. “Something big and important.” But what? she wondered. Break a record in that book of records Beezus talked about? Climb Mount Hood?

“Such as?” her father asked.

Ramona finished scrubbing the front of her sweater with the dish towel. “Well—” she said, thinking. “You know that big bridge across the Columbia River?”

“Yes. The Interstate Bridge. The one we cross when we drive to Vancouver.”

“I’ve always wanted to stop on that bridge and get out of the car and stand with one foot in Oregon and one foot in Washington.”

“A good idea, but not practical,” said Mr. Quimby. “Your mother has the car, and I doubt if cars are allowed to stop on the bridge. What else?”

“It’s not exactly important, but I always like to crayon,” said Ramona. How long would her father leave his cigarettes on the counter?

Mr. Quimby set his cup down. “I have a great idea! Let’s draw the longest picture in the world.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a roll of shelf paper. When he tried to unroll it on the kitchen floor, the paper rolled itself up again. Ramona quickly solved that problem by Scotch-taping the end of the roll to the floor. Together she and her father unrolled the paper across the kitchen and knelt with a box of crayons between them.

“What shall we draw?” she asked.

“How about the state of Oregon?” he suggested. “That’s big enough.”

Ramona’s imagination was excited. “I’ll begin with the Interstate Bridge,” she said.

“And I’ll tackle Mount Hood,” said her father.

Together they went to work, Ramona on the end of the shelf paper and her father halfway across the kitchen. With crayons Ramona drew a long black bridge with a girl standing astride a line in the center. She drew blue water under the bridge, even though the Columbia River always looked gray. She added gray clouds, gray dots for raindrops, and all the while she was drawing she was trying to find courage to tell her father something.